Probate Marketing Help

[Matt Foster]

Question for my Southeast Michigan members or anyone else with similar circumstances.  I've been direct mailing probates for a few months now and it's been going relatively well.  But as my list grows it's making me more and more uncomfortable with the nasty phone calls and social media posts I'm getting.  And to be honest I feel terrible about it because 95% of the negative feedback is coming from widows who just lost their partner and have no desire to sell their house.  I don't want to mail to them obviously but the problem I'm having is that I don't know how to accurately remove these people from my list.  

Here's what I get.  Detroit Legal News publishes the list of new probates which I put onto an excel file.  I get the name of the decedent, the attorney and the personal rep's name & address.  I don't know if these estates have real estate or what relationship the PR has with the decedent.  Since I don't have the address of the decedent I can't cross reference with the PR name.  So I'm at a loss.  

Going to the courthouse and pulling individual files is just not feasible.  Are there any other tricks that you use to get a better list?  The only thing I can think of is to eliminate all entries that have the same last name of the PR and decedent realizing that I'm getting rid of potential siblings, children, cousins, etc.  Solves my problem but eliminates so many that I would otherwise mail to.  

Thoughts?